September 26, 2015

On the Nature of Things Humanity Was Not Meant to Know

Attention
conservation notice: A ponderous, scholastic joke, which could only
hope to be amusing to those who combine a geeky enthusiasm for over-written
horror stories from the early 20th century with nerdy enthusiasm for truly
ancient books.

I wish to draw attention to certain parallels between De Rerum
Natura, an ancient epic and didactic poem expounding a philosophy which
is blasphemous according to nearly* every religion, and
the Necronomicon, a fictitious book of magic supposedly expounding
a doctrine which is blasphemous according to nearly** every religion.

The Necronomicon was, of course,
invented
by H. P. Lovecraft for his stories in the 1920s and 1930s. In his mythos,
it was written by the mad poet "Abdul Alhazred", who died in +738 by being torn
apart by invisible monsters. The book then led a twisty life through a thin
succession of manuscript copies and translations, rare and almost lost. The
book was, supposedly, full of the horrible, nearly indescribable, secrets of
the universe: explaining how the world is an uncaring yet quite material place,
in which the
Earth's past
and future are full of monsters, but natural monsters, how the reign of
humanity is a transient episode, and the gods are in reality powerful
extra-terrestrial beings, without any particular care for humanity. Reading
the Necronomicon drives one mad, or at the very least the
frightful knowledge it imparts permanently warps the mind. There are,
supposedly, about half-a-dozen copies in existence, kept under lock and key
(except
when the
story requires otherwise).

And thus you will gain knowledge, guided by a little labor,
For one thing will illuminate the next, and blinding night
Won't steal your way; all secrets will be opened to your sight,
One truth illuminate another, as light kindles light.

*: I insert the qualifier for the sake of my Unitarian Universalist friends. ^

**: I insert the qualifier for the sake of my Unitarian Universalist friends. ^

Spoiling the conceit: I
have no reason to believe that Lovecraft was thinking of Lucretius at any point
in writing any of his stories featuring the Necronomicon, or even
that the history of De Rerum Natura influenced the "forbidden
tome" motif
which Lovecraft drew on (and amplified). I also do not think that the
Enlightenment is really about "shouting and killing and revelling in joy".
(Though it would be its own kind of betrayal of the Enlightenment for one of
its admirers, like me, not to face up to the ways some of its ideas have been
used to justify very great evils, particularly when Europeans imposed
themselves on less powerful peoples elsewhere.) Rather, this is all the result
of the collision in my head of
Ada
Palmer's interview by Henry Farrell with Palmer's
earlier appreciation of Ruthanna
Emrys's "Litany of Earth",
plus Ken
MacLeod's cometary Lucretian deities, and early imprinting
on Bruce
Sterling.

Finally, I would pay good money to read the alternate history where it was
the Necronomicon which humanists discovered mouldering in a
monastic library and revived, where its ideas are as thoroughly normalized,
pervasive and surpassed as Lucretius's are, and copies of Kitab
al-Azif can
be found in
any bookstore as a Penguin Classic, translated by
a distinguished contemporary
poet. Failing that, I would like to read Lucretius's explanation of why we
need have no fear of shoggoths.